Tancredo to boycott Spanish-language debate

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Tancredo to boycott Spanish-language debate
Calls Republican colleagues' participation worse than pandering

Rep. Tom Tancredo says his fellow Republican presidential candidates are aiding immigrants in breaking the law by taking part in this weekend's Spanish-language debate in Miami.

"What all my colleagues — what the other candidates are doing — it's encouraging violation of the law because it's saying, 'Don't worry about the fact that you have to know English to earn citizenship,' " said Mr. Tancredo, the only Republican to turn down the invitation from Univision for Sunday night's debate and who said the other candidates' participation was worse than pandering.

For the Colorado congressman, it's a matter of principle: He said the other candidates are contributing to the Balkanization of the country by joining the debate, in which the candidates will speak English, but their answers will be translated into Spanish for broadcast on the nation's largest Spanish-language network.

And it's one of the few areas left to Mr. Tancredo, the original anti-illegal immigration candidate in the Republican field, as he struggles to set himself apart from the others who have adopted many of his stances on the issue — so much so that he said he is being "out-Tancredoed."

Yesterday, he released a stark television ad here that shows photos of bloody bodies, including those of children, lying in a street, victims of gang violence. The ad warns that the violent criminals behind those kinds of attacks are sneaking into the U.S., and calls for deportation of illegal aliens — something most other candidates have shied away from, calling for attrition through better enforcement instead.

The ad blames "gutless politicians" for not acting to secure the borders and remove illegal aliens.

Mr. Tancredo said he has a little money and a short period of time before the caucuses, so he figured he needed to make as much of an impact as he could. But he said he wasn't going for shock value in order to try to regain territory.

"That wasn't the purpose in this," he said. "It helps, but that wasn't on my mind."

Also campaigning in Iowa yesterday was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who accepted endorsements from Tim LaHaye, co-author of the apocalyptic evangelical "Left Behind" series, from his wife Beverly LaHaye, founder of Concerned Women for America, and from two former supporters of Sen. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican who ended his bid for the nomination.

Mr. Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor who was governor of Arkansas for 10 years, also accepted the personal endorsements of about five dozen Iowa pastors, part of a network he is building.

Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Tancredo are on differing trajectories. Mr. Huckabee has translated a surprise second-place showing in the Iowa straw poll in August into a lead in the polls here, while Mr. Tancredo does not appear to have improved on his fourth-place showing in August.

Mr. Tancredo said it was a "no-brainer" to reject Univision's invitation, but his decision has been widely debated on the Internet, and some of his supporters said he is missing a chance to take his message where it needs to be heard.

Mr. Tancredo said he expects his voice is being heard this way. "My not being there is probably the strongest statement I can make on this issue," he said.

He also rejected the criticism that he is refusing to address a particular audience, saying this is purely an issue of language. He was the only Republican candidate to accept an invitation to speak to the annual convention of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People this year.

Asked if he would watch the debate from home, he said that wasn't the plan: "Nah, I don't know Spanish."

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Univision hosting 1st GOP debate aimed at Spanish speakers
'Republicans have handled the Hispanic vote very callously so far'

Republican presidential candidates will try to woo one of their most disenchanted voting blocs Sunday in a debate that will be translated simultaneously into the language of persuasion: Spanish.

Broadcast live from the University of Miami by the Univision network, the debate marks the first time the Republican field will participate in a televised forum directed at a Spanish-speaking audience. It also comes on the heels of new data suggesting a turnabout in Latinos' allegiance to the Republican Party since last summer, as an angry immigration debate rolled through Congress.

A Pew Hispanic Center report released Thursday found 57 percent of Hispanic registered voters now call themselves Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. That compares with 23 percent who align with the Republican Party, down from about 28 percent in July 2006.

"Among Hispanic voters, allegiance to the Republican Party is declining," said Richard Fry, co-author of the study. "There's been erosion, and there is evidence of a substantial shift to the Democratic Party."

The survey was conducted by telephone from Oct. 3 through Nov. 9 among a randomly selected, nationally representative sample of 2,003 Hispanics, of whom 843 are registered voters. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points; for registered voters 4.0 percentage points.

It showed a reversal from earlier years, when the Republican Party inched into the good graces of Latino voters, challenging a longtime Democratic franchise.

In this presidential campaign, "Republicans have handled the Hispanic vote very callously so far," said Dario Moreno, director of The Metropolitan Center, an economic and political research group at Florida International University. He pointed to conservatives' strident rhetoric on illegal immigration as off-putting to many Latino voters. And he said Republican presidential candidates stumbled by coming late to the Univision forum.

The Democratic field held a similar forum in September, but most Republican candidates, invited to debate a week later, cited scheduling conflicts.

Sunday's forum will offer a glimpse at how Republican candidates plan to regain lost ground. While Hispanics comprise only 9 percent of the national electorate, they account for a larger share of voters in most of the swing states, including Florida, making them a crucial audience. Hispanics make up 14 percent of Florida's registered voters.

Jorge Mursuli, national director of the Miami-based Democracia USA, a Hispanic advocacy group, said many Latinos feel Republicans turned on them during the immigration debate — in Congress and on the airwaves.

"The impact is about the vitriol, about people who stepped over the line of policy discussion and into the area of hatemongering," said Mursuli.

Voters also may be punishing all Republicans for conservatives' hard line. Sen. John McCain co-sponsored a bill to legalize a large segment of the undocumented population and boost border security — a position with strong support among Hispanic voters. But when conservatives in his own party sank the legalization bill, McCain "got splattered with that mud," Mursuli said.

While immigration policy is increasingly important to Latino voters, analysts warned it was one of many issues that would influence votes. The Pew Hispanic Center identified education as Latino voters' enduring top concern, followed by health care, the economy and crime.

"We want safer streets. We want our taxes as low as possible. We want our children to have a world-class education," said Cindy Guerra, vice chairwoman of the Republican Party of Broward County. "We care about the same issues that all Americans care about."

Many among the Venezuelan-American community, an emergent voice in local Hispanic politics, were scrutinizing the candidates for their Latin America policies.

"We need a candidate who is well-informed about Latin America and the rise of leaders like Hugo Chavez," said Pedro Gonzalez, 74, head of the Miami-based health clinic Hermandad Venezolana-Americana. He is also on Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's national Hispanic steering committee.

Christian Posada, 36, of Boca Raton, said immigration policy would be his top priority as a voter. As president of the Latin American Republicans of South Florida, he said the party represented values that fit well with Latino voters. Both tend to stress family values and oppose abortion.

But he added, "We have 12 million illegal immigrants who are settled here. They've got kids. … At times, the Republicans have said things in the immigration debate that have lead many Latino voters to believe that this is not the party that will help them with their issues."